T-Zero, the credit derivatives matching service, says more than 100 buy-side firms have signed on to use its services, reflecting an accelerated pace of adoption.
Launched just over a year ago, T-Zero says its expected to hit the 100 client goal by year end, but strong interest by the buy-side is resulting in a substantially faster sign-up rate.
Internal expectations are that T-Zero will continue to increase its buy-side users rapidly in coming months, as dealers, prime brokers, fund administrators and other service providers connect to the service.
Last week, UK regulator the Financial Services Authority warned investment banks and hedge funds that they face possible penalties unless they tighten controls on derivatives trading, while a supervisory group led by the New York Federal Reserve will meet with the top 14 dealers later this month to review progress.
Available as either a stand-alone system or through the Bloomberg Professional service, T-Zero enables financial professionals to affirm, allocate, novate and terminate trades with their counterparts in real time, thus mitigating operational risk. Through the Bloomberg distribution channel, more than 250,000 financial markets participants have access to the platform and eleven leading dealers have signed on.
“In an environment where the market is growing rapidly and the industry faces the challenge of ensuring a smooth front-to-back-office trading process, solutions such as T-Zero are vitally important,” says Stephen Grady, Global Head of Dealing, Fortis Investments. “T-Zero allows us to reduce operational risk as early as possible in the trade lifecycle, providing greater efficiency and transparency, ultimately resulting in better service to our clients.”
“Achieving this level of buy-side participation signals the growing momentum that T-Zero has achieved in attracting leading institutions to our platform,” adds Mark Beeston, T-Zero President. “Our agnostic connectivity model provides clients with a trade affirmation and connectivity service that extends its reach into all aspects of credit derivatives trade processing, while our ability and willingness to work with all market participants is providing the necessary infrastructure the industry needs to underpin growth while satisfying the regulators.”
“An error made at trade execution can result in multiple errors downstream,” says Philip O’Brien, VP of Operations at Ramius Capital Group, LLC. “T-Zero’s platform has allowed us to capture trade data 100% accurately upfront, ensuring the smooth flow of trade information between us and our counterparties – helping to reduce operational risk while increasing our operational efficiency.”
T-Zero maintains its approach to electronic connectivity and messaging directly addresses the major inefficiencies in post-trade derivative processing highlighted by the New York Federal Reserve and the FSA.